Morgan Donahue was born on May 2, 1944, in Hollywood, California. After attending the University of Maryland from September 1962 to June 1963, he entered the U.S. Air Force Academy on June 24, 1963, and was commissioned a 2d Lt in the U.S. Air Force on June 7, 1967. Lt Donahue next completed Undergraduate Navigator Training and was awarded his navigator wings at Mather AFB, California, in May 1968, and then attended C-123 Provider Combat Crew Training before deploying to Southeast Asia in August 1968. He served as a UC-123K Night FAC navigator with the 606th Special Operations Squadron of the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB, Thailand, from August 1968 until he was listed as Missing in Action after his aircraft suffered a mid-air collision with a B-57B Canberra and crashed on December 13, 1968, over Laos. Lt Donahue was officially held in a Missing in Action status and was promoted through the ranks to Major (O-4) before being administratively declared dead on February 2, 1981. His remains have never been recovered.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.